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What's this case all about?
In fall 1995, hundreds of students and sports fans from Santa Fe,
Texas, attended a public high school football game. Before the game,
school officials gave the microphone to a student elected by classmates
to recite a prayer over the public address system.
Two students, one Catholic and the other Mormon, recognized that
it was not their prayer and thought something was amiss.
Parents of the two children troubled by the football game prayer,
with help from the Texas affiliate of the American Civil Liberties
Union, tried to negotiate with school officials, asking them to stop
promoting prayer at school events. When those attempts failed, the
parents filed suit in federal court.
On February 26, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that invocations
before football games are unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court
has agreed to hear an appeal.
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What's wrong with students praying at a
football game?
Nothing. No one is trying to take away an individual's right to pray.
If students want to pray before, during, or after a football game,
that's entirely up to them.
The issue is whether the school can get involved with the religious
exercise by turning over the school's public address system for a
prayer endorsed by the school--a prayer that everyone is forced to
listen to.
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How is the school getting involved with
the prayer?
First, the school facilitates a student election that allows the student
body to vote for a classmate to deliver the prayer at the game.
Then school officials turn over the school's public address system
to broadcast a prayer to school students at an official school event.
The school is setting the time, place, and length of religious worship.
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Isn't this about free speech?
Absolutely not. There is a critical difference between private individual
speech and speech promoted by the government.
Consider this analogy: A group of people can go to a public park
and exercise their free speech. But once the state decides to help
broadcast one person's speech to everyone in the park because it is
popular, that address becomes state-sponsored speech.
Public schools must be neutral on religion to protect the rights
of everyone. Students should not be pressured to pray.
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If a majority of the students want a prayer
before a game, shouldn't the majority rule?
Our First Amendment rights are not open to a popularity contest. Prayer
is a deeply personal experience, best left to individuals, their families,
and conscience. It is not the government's job to encourage prayer.
School officials and student majorities should never be allowed to
bully other children into religious worship. The Bill of Rights provides
for individual freedom of conscience, not a tyranny of the majority.
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Doesn't the school want "non-sectarian"
and "non-proselytizing" prayer?
There's no such thing as "non-sectarian" and "non-proselytizing" prayer.
Prayer is deeply private and does not exist in a "one size fits all"
format. In any community, there are diverse religious communities,
with different religious traditions and people who have chosen no
spiritual path at all. No prayer would please everyone. In this Santa
Fe case, most of the prayers recited ended "in Jesus' name"--hardly
non-sectarian.
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How does this controversy affect religious
minorities?
Since the students elect a classmate to deliver a prayer before a
game, students of minority faiths are unlikely to get chosen.
As a result, religious minorities who want to attend their own school
events have to endure school-promoted worship that often conflicts
with what they are taught at home and at their house of worship.
If you belong to a minority faith and it's not your prayer the school
is broadcasting, the state is effectively telling you, "too bad."
Public school students should never be made to feel like second-class
citizens at their own school.
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If this is just about prayer at a football
game, what is the legal significance of this case?
A Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Santa Fe School District would
create a precedent for greater government promotion of religious worship.
This would represent a radical departure from Court precedent that
has mandated government neutrality.
If public school students can elect a classmate to lead students
in prayer at an official school event, what's to say that the same
practice couldn't be applied to homeroom every morning?
Years ago, supporters of state-sponsored religion would tell dissenters
that if they didn't like mandated Christian prayer and Bible reading
every morning, they could wait in the hall. This decision could turn
back the clock toward those days.
